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Just a quick update on the issues plaguing Apple’s iOS and Mac App Stores: Apple has now informed developers that it’s aware of the problem and is working on a resolution. For background, a serious problem has been discovered in the iOS and Mac App Stores which has been causing apps to immediately crash after users update to the most recent version. This is now day three of the problem, and Apple had yet to respond to the situation until this afternoon.

You can read about the app crashing problem in detail in our earlier post here, but the short of it is that corrupt app store binaries, and possibly some problem related to Apple’s FairPlay DRM, is at the root of these mysterious crashes.

According to our developer sources, Apple has now responded to numerous complaints in its Developer Forums with a brief statement posted by username “iTunesConnect.”

The statement reads:

“We are aware of the issue related to apps crashing after update. We are currently working on resolving the issue. Stay tuned for updates.”

Apple has also reached out to developers via email, again responding to the issue with a fairly generic statement:

If a customer reports receiving an error when downloading your app from the App Store, he or she can receive direct help from the iTunes Store Customer Support team:

The email also included a phone number to call, and, according to a developer who was able to reach a support representative, Apple informed him that it is aware of the problem and now has a dedicated team looking into it. This new team will be sending out additional information to developers via email shortly, this person was told.

We’ll update as we learn more.

Update: One developer said he noticed this issue back in late June, but assumed it was an isolated incident. Another said that while the support rep on the phone wasn’t in the position to make promises, he got the sense that Apple will make an effort to fix the damages done by the bug in terms of the negative customer reviews.

Update, 5:53pm Pacific Time: Apple provided the following statement to AllThingsD, saying that a DRM issue (which we heard about earlier from developers), was the cause of the problem. The full statement below:

We had a temporary issue that began yesterday with a server that generated DRM code for some apps being downloaded. The issue has been rectified and we don’t expect it to occur again.

Few users were affected, Apple also said, and those people can now re-download apps that had issues.